I'm afraid to stop losing...please help
 

Ok, so I've come to the realization that 145-150 is a good maintenance range for me. I'm at a humble size, I look fantastic in clothes, I have an fit/athletic build so I look like I weigh a little less than I do, and not to be an ego manic but I look AWESOME* (*with clothes on). So the * is the problem. Without clothes my tummy is saggy and gross, but I don't think another 5 or 10lbs will make a difference, and for the sake of my boobies I don't think it's worth finding out. I think the only thing that would make my tummy where I want it to be would be surgery and that is not happening anytime soon, so I need to accept it and move on.

I feel like 145-150 is a VERY managable weight for me and that with continued strength training and running, my tummy may improve some. So the problem is I'm TERRIFIED to stop losing. Why? Well for one thing I've been doing it for 4 1/2 years! But the bigger issue is that I'm one of the lucky ones that loses at a high calorie level and I'm really scared what my maintenance level is going to be. I'm afraid it will be too much food and that it could send me into relapse. So what do I do? Do I just start adding a little bit at a time and know that I'll probably lose a couple more lbs in the process? Would eating the same cals I'm eating now but only adding on the weekends be a better approach (we commonly go out to restaurants on the weekends). I don't know what I'm completely panicing about this, I've been planning and thinking about maintenace for months now, but now that it's here and it's time I'm totally freaked out. I'm sure you've noticed from my other posts and are sick of hearing about it, but I could really use some guidence here. Did anyone else have trouble entering maintenace?

Yes, I would recommend you do this. Be gradual about it, and don't worry if a couple more pounds come off. You want your body to get used to having more food without it "deciding" immediately to make fat out of it. I think others can tell you more about how much they added back at a time.

Jay

I had trouble. I was almost paralyzed at the thought of upping calories. It does get easier over time.

Add cals slowly - 100 cals per day or so. Let it sit at that level for one to two weeks, then add more if you are still losing. You can add 100 cals easily with some nuts, peanut butter, a little yogurt, something like that. Stay away from foods that were triggers for you in the past. Using calorie dense good for you foods will move the cals up without much extra volume, if you worry about the volume pushing you over.

Or, if you want to keep your current level during the week and allow for higher weekends that would likely work, too. I know people who do that as their maintenance plan. Heck, a lot of weeks it is mine. :) Just keep track of what you are eating on those weekends. That is my failing sometimes.

You will be fine honey. :)

What do you think about first adding a post workout recovery drink? I'm training for a half marathon and I'd like some of my maintenance cals to be easy to eliminate if they're unecessary for the long term?

I was also terrified to stop losing, to the point where I got stuck putting calories back IN. I added 100 when I hit my goal, then kinda stopped there. I wasn't losing, wasn't gaining. Then after several months it got where I wanted to eat more. So I added another 50-100. No losing, no gaining. It's taking me FOREVER to convince myself to add calories. I'm terrified of seeing the scale start to climb...

Thank you very much for this thread. This has been on my mind lately.

I've done this twice now, and neither time was it done well, so I'll tell you what happened as a way for us both to figure out what I did wrong.

1) Years ago, when I passed 200 pounds, I lost 75 pounds, got down to 125 & still wasn't happy with how my body looked. Got down to 110 & still wasn't happy, ate even less & increased my exercise to three hours a day. Got to 107 with superhuman effort, exercised an hour every morning and two and half hours every evening, as well as walking constantly at lunchtime, was jittery all the time, couldn't focus or think about anything but eating -- or rather, not eating -- and thought I'd finally be happy with my butt if I reached 100 pounds exactly. In short, I went crazy. I can't remember if I ultimately hit 105 or 103 -- I don't remember my lowest weight ever as an adult because I was too crazy & dissatisfied to enjoy it. (And I don't like the photos taken of me during that period. My face developed that grinning skull look.) But shortly thereafter, I had my first binge. Then another binge. And that took care of that problem -- and I went into therapy.

2) Many years later, in 2007, at over 250 pounds, I set out again on my weight loss journey, planning to do it the right way, and above all, to avoid redeveloping an eating disorder, I refused to set a number goal at first, because of my earlier scale fixation, then decided I wanted the bare minimum considered healthy for my height. It was all about removing pressure on myself. I made my goal in Spring 2009 with several pounds to spare. But I allowed a slight portion creep, particularly at lunch at work, where I ate what's on the salad bar. And work got a little more difficult, and I was sitting for hours at a time & moving less incidentally. (I actually increased my formal exercise.) So the scale crept up about eight pounds, with me losing three to five of these over & over, almost ritually. Within the past month & a half, I've committed to making a more formal effort to get rid of those pounds & now I'm within about two pounds of being where I was. I feel as if I've never stopped losing, actually. But it's definitely a less driven feeling than I had years before. Now I understand the limits of being slightly too casual about it, as opposed to the limits of being far too rigorous.

Still working on my happy medium ....

Structure it PRE and post workout. Emphasis on High GI carbs.
Problem solved
Re Fear: you get used to it. It gets easier. You learn to accept a few pounds up/down. And if you accidently gain 5 pounds? or 8 pounds? You lose it again. Pretty sure you know how to do that. :)
Or you could freak out about it everyday for the rest of your life, and not enjoy the body you worked so hard for.
Increase your cals with increase in activity
Food is Fuel
Eat less on rest days
More on High volume training days
Realize that just because you ran 8 miles doesnt entitle you to go crazy though.

Thank you! I really am reacting completely irrationally! Yesterday was stage 1 - total excitement, relief. Today is stage 2 - freaking out! Hopefully tomorrow will be stage 3 - acceptance.

I'm liking the idea of the first stage of maintenance focusing on pre and post work out nutrition. Like I said easily omittable if need be. I've come up with kind of 3 calories levels one for losing, one for maintaining and one for if I'm still losing at maintaining. So for now I'll think I'll float between losing and maintaining with emphasis on pre and post workout nutrition and see how it goes. After a few weeks if I need to introduce more food I'll start with extra veggies at lunch and dinner. If after a few more weeks I'm still losing well...I'll worry about it then! I'd love to hear more of your experiences though through the begining of your maintenance phase! Oh my gosh! I can't believe I'm here!

I freaked out once I hit maintenance and went on several binge sprees. I guess I wasn't psychologically ready. Also, I think I added too much stress in my life because I resumed dating when I hit maintenance. My dating experiences have not been positive & I started medicating my pain with food again. I reverted to old, unhealthy behavior.

I'm over my red line weight and am in weight loss mode again. And I've stepped back from dating a bit. I need to become recentered again.

I did not do maintenance gracefully at all, but at least I'm not giving up like I did in the past.

I think you will do better than I did because you have been practicing sane, healthy living for 4 years.

I have been maintaining for 14 mo. now, and it has not been easy for me to figure this all out, I still have not figured it out yet. Reading all these posts really helps. Like you, I'm terrified of gaining weight. After you have worked so long and hard to get where you are, the last thing you want is weight gain. I used to use binging once or twice a week to gain, then go strict on my diet to lose it, all I did was gain and lose the same 5 lbs. over and over, i did that for 13 mo. This is a real bad idea and it gets to be a ritual that you look forward to every week. It's not good for your body and it makes you feel like crap for a couple days. I recently am working on slowing the binges down. It's really hard, like an addiction. I found that if I don't binge every week, I can raise my calories each day. I exercise for 40 min. a day( power walk & jogging and am very active) no days off unless it's pouring rain. If it does rain, then I keep my calories lower, otherwise I find I can eat 1600 to 1700 cal a day for about 3 days, then I will gain 1 or 1.5 lbs. When I gain, i start lowering my calories (I have to stay away from processed foods all the time, they make me gain)til the weight comes back off. I've been doing this for a month now, all calories have to be good calories, binging has only been twice a month and I'm hoping to stop all together. So you could say I'm trying to teach myself a better way to maintain. So, the plan you might start out on to maintain, might not be the right way for you. It will just take time to figure it out. I'm sure you'll do fine, and eventually you'll learn to accept those little weight fluctuations that happen to all of us. I'm learning to accept, even though it's very hard to.